I have actually thought it might be misinterpreted because it's vague in that sentence - no, I don't mean that the guy thinks the hotel sucks. He still doesn't care. But his wife thinks it sucks and she is solely responsible for her choice. In a partnership.

Most likely, when confronted with her dislike, he would not be comforting her like "honey, it's ok, you picked a nice hotel, I don't think it's bad at all", but just be like "look, it doesn't matter, we'll just sleep here". Basically invalidating her feelings and experiences.

The point I am trying to make is: if you are in a committed relationship you sometimes have to care, have an opinion, help with decisions, even if it was something that you usually don't care about. But saying "I don't care about the outcome of something that you care about" is definitely neither kind nor loving and devastating in the long run.

Could it be because decision making is hard and you end up telling your partner that you a) don't care about what they care about b) leave them hanging when they might need help to decide c) they end up having decision fatigue because you don't have an opinion? Sometimes, a consultation or just a talk about something one tries to make a decision on feels good, doing it all by yourself sucks.

Let's say you don't care what hotel she books. She ends up doing all the research on hotels. Presents you with it, pros and cons. You still say you don't care. Ok, so now the burden of choice is solely on her. You guys arrive, the hotel sucks. Can't you see that this is frustrating in a different way than if the two of you decided on the hotel together?

That's true. Or that he moved to the scene of the crime. Which would be a pretty chad move tbh.

I somehow think he went on a bus, and then just took a bus back and is now just walking around in new york. Everyone thinks he has fled but they got nothing on him, so why leave. That would be more suspicious actually than just going about your everyday life.

I'm from Germany, so my exposure to US politics is limited (yet still way too much). So, I happened to watch/listen to the new york times podcast interview with vance about 1-2 weeks before the election. Mind you, before that I assumed he was an awkward idiot because all I knew about him was the doughnut thing, laughing at his own joke, and the couch thing. So I basically only tuned in to hear that weird ass man speak for once.

Apart from the shitty interviewer, I was shocked to find that he would charm me every couple of minutes. Saying people change their minds, people make mistakes, explaining where he is coming from, talking about his wife. This was not who I expected. And I had to remind myself a couple of times: this dude is up to no good. Listen to what he is not saying. Don't get sucked into this madness.

But damn he sounded so normal. So human. (Especially in contrast to the stuff I heard about him before.) And since then, I am honestly worried about this guy. I am definitely on the left spectrum politically speaking, and I still found some stuff relatable just by the way he talked. This scared me so much.

So I agree with you, I think he is an opportunist. And he actually knows what he is doing. I think he knows how to act and speak much better than the left US media tried to portray. They try to ridicule someone who is a very elaborate politician, and this can backfire so much, it's dangerous. Don't ridicule the devil in power. I believe if he wanted to, he could wrap a lot of people around his finger.

Dude did you just reveal his identity and ruin his secret streak?

It's bizarre to me that harcore vegans want to own a pet to begin with. Keeping bees for honey is bad, but separating a kitten from its mother at an early age and castrating it for your convenience and deciding how they live (restricted to an apartment or not) is totally fine?

I understand that most pets live a good life, but man, I can't bring myself to make choices like these. I mean there are ways to circumvent it (get an older cat from an asylum for example) but it doesn't really remove the "pet dilemma" to me.

I'm sorry but when I read "pride month is defeated" in the context of a heterosexual engagement my mind immediately assumes the dude is a closeted homosexual who chose her as his beard instead of coming out. And this is how he "defeated pride". By choosing a heteronormative lifestyle over his actual preferences.

The most optimistic scenario my head can come up with to make the sentence make sense would be that she's bisexual and because of him she chose to commit to a heteronormative relationship.

In any way, for a lack of a better term, putting your engagement in context of defeating pride makes you look quite gay.

I don't expect elections to deliver the result I want, I want my vote to count

Although a lot of the other points deserve (more?) attention, I just want to share this because I never thought how hard this would feel.

I'm in my early 30s and come from a very apolitical family. About 1.5 months ago I voted for the first time in my life. At an embassy in the fraudulent Russian election.

Of course I knew my vote would not count. I always knew that every Russian election since I was a kid was a fraud. I did it for a statement and to partake in an event that resembled a demonstration, to do the limited thing I can do. But I would have never imagined that feeling that would hit me once I had actually voted.

After standing in line and passing the security checkpoints and ruining the bulletin (which in theory should count as a vote against everyone in the percentages). Once it was done. I was... furious, enraged, desperate. Much more than I thought. On a rational level I knew my vote didn't matter. The results were already calculated no matter what. Even before I got in line. No matter whether I had smuggled in my non erasable pen or not. But once I had actually voted for the first time, I didn't want anything more than this vote to count. Not to win, just for someone to acknowledge that bulletin. I felt so angry and helpless and I wanted to scream until my lungs would start to bleed.

So, yes, this freaking matters. I hope none of you will ever feel this way after voting. And for the love of God, if you have a passport of a country who has somewhat fair elections, please go vote.

(Preface: I am team genocide. I also live in Germany. Germany's politics are a disgrace, but I digress.)

What annoys me about this is that this discussion gets so much media attention and focus, while it doesn't matter in this very moment. I understand that there are implications if it will be defined as a genocide. But right now people are being killed every day en masse and they frankly give a crap about whether they died in a mass murder or terrorist attack or a genocide.

It reminds me of the early days of the Ukraine war when everyone was so obsessed with comparing Putin to Hitler (Putler is still a popular term) and the discussion was high on whether Putins actions amount to fascism or not, with a lot of internet laymen but also experts on that subject chiming in. When I asked a half Russian, half Ukrainian what their opinion was, their reply was something like "who the fuck cares? Call it a chicken pea pie, nobody cares, people are being killed, I don't give a crap. Somewhen in the future people will be looking back and asking the same question, but it doesn't matter right now." And it stuck with me.

If I understand correctly, the ICJ will rule again on the case in a couple of years (?), which obviously isn't relevant right now. It seems like the ruling would have an aftermath in retrospect but even if they ruled it were a genocide today, nothing much would change directly - but please correct me if I am wrong here.

But what definitely doesn't matter is what we think. What matters is what is happening. And it doesn't need a name to be evil and detrimental.

When I was 16, I went to high school in California for half a year as an exchange student. I am from Germany and as a junior, I would have had something like my 4th or 5th year of chemistry in school, but out of necessity (or laziness) I took beginner's chemistry.

For exercises I had been paired with two girls who used to try to make fun of me (I think; I never really figured out what their deal was), and asked me stupid questions about myself or Germany. I remember they once asked laughingly whether I like oranges because I was wearing a t-shirt with an orange print.

Well, then one day, there we go. Converting exercises. You have students from 9th to 12th grade in groups of 3-4, trying to convert imperial measurements to metrics. And then metrics to metrics. Basically, for a couple of weeks, we just converted stuff like 14 cm to mm or dm. I forgot so much about my time abroad but the most vivid memory I have is of the girls looking at each other (after a couple of days and repeated explanations) and one says "the decimal system just makes no sense" and the other one quietly and slowly nods in agreement. I ask them how it makes no sense. "Well it just makes no sense." It's just base 10 everything and the rest is practice, it's not different from inches to feet. "No but you see this makes sense. There are 12 inches in a foot", continued by a list of how many shmekels make up a whoopsiedoodle and how many dingelings fit into a hybotron.

I understand how you first have to get accustomed to new units and how conversion might need practice when you aren't familiar with the prefixes, especially when you aren't too experienced in the stem field. But I am still flabbergasted by the statement that having a system where everything is just base 10 and then you shift the decimal point around makes no sense. We are talking about fellow juniors here. How do you make it to age 16/17 never having heard of a decimal point or having trouble with base 10 conversion? HOW CAN YOU SAY IT MAKES NO SENSE?! It's the simplest, most logic based system there is!

That’s why older porn is so jarring sometimes because of the weird habit of cutting to the guy’s moaning face in the middle of everything. Like, what the fuck was the thinking behind that “technique”?

So, I am pulling this out of my ass (no pun intended) but I got a theory here. I think the way porn is consumed and its intention have shifted along with our perception and experience of sex.

Older porn seems to be more like "a movie depicting people having sex". So it shows the woman and the man having sex, touching, kissing, enjoying. Both are crucial parts of the act. It also appears like the main function is to get you horny, not to get you off. I remember overhearing older people talking about watching porn together before having sex. I know this can still be a thing, but I'd argue that most modern porn is neither made for that purpose nor directed/designed in a way that would work for this.

Modern porn, in its insane abundance, is to be consumed alone for the purpose to jerk off to, to activate some dopamine receptors or whatnot, and its notorious addictiveness that makes you want more and more intense stimuli. You don't need people for that, you need bodies.

The other thing is that sex - maybe because of the oversexualization, social media, internet, being wired 24/7, or maybe because of hookups having become so common, anonymous and risk free - has become somewhat sterile. Almost like an out of body experience. I forgot who said it - something like "we fantasize about fucking our partner while we fuck our partner". We're not in touch with ourselves and don't experience the sex we have while we have it, we are almost disconnecting from the experience. It's absurd but common.

You find this "sterility" in modern porn too; perfect bodies with no hair, no shadows, no marks of any kind, almost no body contact except the genitals. Just because there is a cumshot somewhere doesn't make it less sterile or more intimate. You paraphrased this when you described the guy standing in for the viewer, being objectified even more than the woman, being this background thing doing repetitive motions.

(Disclaimer: I'm talking about a modern "we" and and older "they" in very broad terms here. Obviously people 30 years ago had disconnected sexual experiences and anonymous hookups and people nowadays also experience concentrated, fulfilling sex in which they are very much in touch with themselves. Definitely porn was used to be wanked to in the 70s just like some couples enjoy watching porn together today. And within its insane abundance you can most definitely find modern porn that is not sterile.)